The Lonely God
by x-Avarice-x
Summary: Sequel to "Child of Time". The Doctor gets unexpectedly thrown back into the Time War and the Master has his TARDIS. The Doctor must face his own darkness when the drums have found a new host. *Chapter 7 - The past is revealed with a long overdue reunion*
1. Chapter 1

Okay, finally getting to the beginning of this! This is a **sequel** to my story "Child of Time". You absolutely must have read it for any of this to make sense. Hope you all like!

**Disclaimer****:** I don't own Doctor Who. I can pretend that I do, though.

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><p>There was something he was missing.<p>

He couldn't place it. The TARDIS hummed away, seemingly oblivious. He knew her better than that, though. Something was going to happen; he could feel it. She never told him because, obviously, she couldn't. But she knew everything.

He walked around the console, resisting the urge to talk to himself. He was doing that a lot lately. The fact that the universe was dying in the future weighed heavily on his mind, but he had run away, far into the past when the destruction of the universe by entropy didn't matter.

He was good at running. Always had been. Even from his very first face, he had been very good at running. Running from family, from obligations, from friends. From life. He sighed and ran his hands through his admittedly semi-floppy hair. The TARDIS hummed encouragingly, like someone who knew everything that would come to pass, but who wouldn't open their mouth to speak.

Suddenly she violently lurched to the side, almost throwing the Doctor down to the chamber below the glass floor. He haphazardly grabbed the console as she tossed and turned. "Oi! What's wrong?" The shaking stopped just as quickly as it started. He ran to the screen, running every diagnostic check he could find. "But that doesn't make any sense..."

He rested a hand on the top of the screen, leaning against it to think, staring down at the menagerie of buttons and levers on the console. TARDIS scans were detecting an odd signal, through both time and space, converging on the TARDIS, yet doing absolutely nothing to it, as if it was... Searching for something else. Some_one_ else.

The Doctor slowly raised his head, eyes coming to rest on the hand that was on top of the screen. The hand that seemed to be moving all on its own. The hand that was... tapping.

_One, two, three, four._

"What-?" He suddenly felt a great rush of dizziness in his head, much like a fainting spell. He stumbled a bit, hand against his head as he felt something... Something inside his mind!

He rushed around the TARDIS, ordering scans of its primary inhabitant, but she never got that far. He felt the dizziness surging up to take him, but not before he heard the most terrifying sound.

_One, two, three, four._

There was a loud, maniacal cackle, as the Doctor felt himself being... pulled? He had felt this once before, back... when? The TARDIS whirred and kept steady, but her pilot suddenly blinked out of existence. In his place was the last living being she ever wanted to see again.

"That plan went rather well, don't you think?" The Master grinned, patting the console almost fondly. He ran around the center, pulling levers and pressing buttons. "Bye bye, Doctor!" He threw his head back and laughed.


	2. Chapter 2

You'll need a bit of knowledge from season 4 of The Sarah Jane Adventures for this, I'm afraid. I'm really hoping to get this entire story done by the 23rd, so it doesn't interfere with season 6. We'll see how _that_ goes...

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><p>The Doctor slowly opened his eyes.<p>

The sky above him was a color that he hadn't seen in years. He felt the red grass beneath his hands, saw the silver trees around his head. Ships were flying around him in every direction, seemingly oblivious to his existence. Mountains rose up to his left, a worn trail right next to him. This was impossible.

He quickly sat up and cringed. His head was pounding, or was it... No. He looked around frantically, suddenly realizing just what had happened. It couldn't have been, but... How?

The machine was less than three feet away from him. He bolted to it, examining it from all possible angles and angrily determining that it was both dead and fried. Only enough Artron energy for a one way trip...

The Doctor paused briefly, letting himself stare at the orange sky. _Gallifrey..._ But this was the last day of the Time War. The very last day. He would well and truly die if he didn't get out. Not to mention that the Master-

The Master! The Doctor ran his hands through his hair frantically. He would have to build another machine, just like the one that he had used to trade places with Clyde so long ago, back on Earth. It was strikingly similar to the dead machine at his feet. Perhaps...

But they were there, in his head. The drums were in _his_ head. How was that possible? He quickly began pacing, flattening the red grass beneath his feet in giant, anxious steps.

"So, the Master and I switched places, and... he would have had to established some sort of link with me personally, but I never-" He felt a chill run up his spine as the memory flooded back, a memory that still haunted him to this day.

_"It hurts! Doctor, the noise! The noise in my head!" The Master scrambles for purchase in the dust from the building site, kicking up particles that almost make the Doctor cough. "Doctor! One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Stronger than ever before. Can't you hear it?"_

_The Doctor shakes his head, still in pain from the energy that the Master had sent coursing through his body. "I'm sorry."_

_"Please! Listen, listen, listen, listen." The Master pauses, eyes glazed as if listening to a far away sound. "Every minute. Every second." He turns his hazel eyes on the Doctor. "Every beat of my hearts. There it is. Calling to me. Please, listen!"_

_The Doctor feels his hearts grow heavy. "I can't hear it."_

_The Master frowns, crouching so that his face is mere inches from the Doctor's. His voice becomes commanding and loses all of its pleading undertones. "Listen!" He grabs the Doctor's head and places their foreheads together. The Doctor's eyes widen as the sound floats into his own_

_mind, tangible and frightening. He quickly pulls back, as if physically struck. The Master's voice becomes demanding once again. "What?"_

_"That's..." The Doctor is staring at him with incredulity that even he cannot comprehend._

_"What?" The Master is angry. Frightened, but determined._

_"I heard it."_

_The Master's face changes, wondrous and triumphant. He slowly rises to his feet as the Doctor talks, barely hearing what the other Time Lord has to say._

_The Doctor manages to move himself into a crouching position on the ground. "But there's no noise. There never has been. It's just your insanity! It's – What is it?" He almost dares not to utter the next line, as if it would make the drums truly real. "What's inside your head?_

_The Master begins to laugh hysterically. "It's real! It's real." He feels relief and anger and passionate rage at his vindication. He screams. "It's real!"_

_ The Doctor watches as the Master catapults himself into the night sky, quickly standing and chasing after him._

"Oh, but he's a clever one," the Doctor spoke aloud. "He would have been able to use that signal against me. It was real, it was the Time Lords, not simply a product of his insanity. It got into _my_ head, and now-"

"Excuse me, but who the hell are you and what are you doing here?"

The Doctor turned to find the last person he was expecting to see out in the middle of a mountain trail. Several Time Lords and Ladies were gathered behind her, a battalion of sorts, with weapons that the Doctor didn't approve of, but could say nothing against. This was a war, though the Time Lock was still in place; all their efforts in vain...

He was pulled back into the present when she glared at him and tapped a foot, demanding an answer. Always demanding. She looked like a very icy version of his mother, though he knew that wasn't the case. She was familiar. Oh so familiar. He allowed a smile to grace his lips and the drums in his head were briefly forgotten.

"Hello Romana. It's me, it's the Doctor." He saw her face go pale.

"You're _who_?"

She was so very much the same. Every inch of her face was the same. The hair, the eyes, all of it. Her attitude was still very much who he remembered, though she had become slightly more authoritative, if it was possible. That kind of happened when you became the President of an entire species. "I'm the Doctor! I promise, it's me!"

"How dare you! You are not the- ...Oh my god. Doctor... It's really you!" She threw her arms around his neck. The air around them was filled with smog and debris. She held back a cough, peering at the legion in the distance that would soon be upon them. They couldn't see the small troop, hiding in the silver trees with the President in their midst.

The Doctor allowed himself a smile and returned the embrace. "Yes, it's me. I'm me every day in fact."

She let go and looked him over critically. "You just left us- But you look so... Young! When did you regenerate?"

"I've regenerated several times since I saw you last, but that's not quite the problem here."

"Then what is, if I may ask?" the Time Lady replied, putting her hands on her hips.

"The problem is that I'm here and not there," he said, pointing to random places in the air. The noise was in his head. Over and over again. How did _he_ stand it? Oh right; he didn't.

"There? Where is there?" She realized he obviously wasn't talking about the ships flying overhead.

"In my TARDIS. I'm not in my TARDIS; the Master is." He ran his hands through his hair as screaming Daleks flew around them in every direction, the sky crimson blood. "Oh this is extremely very not good at all."


	3. Chapter 3

Hello everyone! I haven't forgotten about this story, I've just been ridiculously busy with school and other little one-shot ideas that kept popping into my head. The plan is to get this story finished by Saturday, so we'll see how it goes! Hope you guys like this chapter! Reviews are love!

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><p>"Get down!" Romana yelled, sweeping her arm toward the clump of trees to the Doctor's right. The group of Time Lords followed her instructions, hiding in the silver leaves, though they afforded little protection. The Daleks flew around them sporadically. The Doctor frowned and chanced a scan, which earned him a frown from Romana. She knew the Time War was already locked, so she said nothing. "Doctor, we have a station nearby. I'll take you there."<p>

"Ah, a war station, just what I need," he replied sarcastically, pocketing the screwdriver. The Daleks above them were enveloped in a strange magnetic field, one that sent them flying in random directions. Such a thing would be useful, if he could tell what it was.

The drums were pounding in his head. For just a moment, he had almost succeeded in forgetting that they were there. He ran a hand down his face in anxiety. There had to be a way to get the Master out of his TARDIS.

Romana stealthily led them to a cave entrance, covered by silver foliage. Climbing over rocks and small bushes, the Doctor ducked into a low entrance lined with both lights and Time Lord soldiers. He marveled that he was actually standing here among them, but a reunion was unfortunately out of the question. There were Daleks to destroy and he still had to find a way back out of the Time Lock. He shuddered to think what the Master was doing to his beloved TARDIS right now.

The Ex-President led him deep into the cave, ignoring the looks of scorn they was receiving from most of the other Time Lords. The Doctor subconsciously wrung his hands and followed closely behind her. The narrow passageway opened up into a large cavern covered in ramshackle machines. The Doctor immediately ran over to them, inspecting the piles of parts and pieces. Romana ignored him and approached another female soldier, one who she whispered to for several moments, then watched the other woman depart. "Doctor?"

"Yes, sorry," he whirled around, slightly embarrassed. "I can fix some of this equipment, if you like." The half smile on his face faded away as the drums beat behind his eyes.

"That's unnecessary, Doctor. But we appreciate the offer," she added, setting her unpleasant looking gun down on one of the few working machines. "So how did you get here?"

"The Master," he answered. "He built a machine similar to something I've used before, it used a pre-existing signal to jump across space and switch our places. So I'm here and he's in my TARDIS."

She listened to his explanation, but had more than enough questions for him. "Did you have anything to do with sending our planet back here?"

The Doctor's face fell. "What?"

"That was only a few hours ago," she reported, without a hint of emotion. "Gallifrey moved and then it returned. I assumed you were the one who sent us back here."

"Yes," he answered softly. "Rassilon used the Master to free Gallifrey, but I couldn't-"

"I know," she interrupted him quickly. "I was there when you made the decision to lock the Time War."

"You were the only one who helped me," he said softly. She nodded. "I suppose that's why they're all glaring at me." She nodded again. "Ah well..."

"We don't have much time," she continued. "The Daleks are without their Emperor. I hold no hope of our species surviving, but we won't go down without a fight."

"I know," he replied with a frown. "The Emperor escaped the Lock. But he's gone now." He debated telling her of the Daleks that had survived outside of the Lock, but decided against it. It made their destruction completely meaningless. He didn't want any of them reacting negatively, especially since they were already made at him. Well, everyone except Romana. He briefly wondered if Drax and Braxiatel were still alive, but he didn't have the time to ask.

A group of three male Time Lords appeared in the entrance to the narrow path they had taken. "Madam President?"

Romana quickly turned to answer. "Yes, report?"

"The Daleks are still reeling from our EMP burst, but it won't hold them for much longer. We need to move."

She nodded and picked her gun off of the machine. "Doctor, you think you can make us a portable version of this?"

The Doctor quickly crossed to the machine and scanned it. "Ooh, Dalek GPS, position scanners, these actually work on them?"

Romana smirked slightly. "We discovered that the specific wavelength that the Daleks use for communication can be disrupted by a specific type of EMP burst. This machine delivers that burst, but it takes significant amounts of energy and our only generator, on the other side of this mountain, was irreparably damaged in the last attack. Unfortunately, the only option we have left is returning to the Citadel."

"The Citadel?" The Doctor echoed, walking forward to stand only a few feet from her. "Rassilon will eat you all alive."

"We've got no choice."

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"This is so much fun, isn't it?"

The TARDIS made a low whine of anger and disapproval. The Master was down below the glass floor that the Doctor was so fond of, re-wiring the TARDIS's circuits. The Doctor had unfortunately learned his lesson from his first encounter with Harold Saxon and put multi-user isomorphic controls on the console. The TARDIS was refusing to register him as one of those users, something that would be fixed soon, if she would stop fighting him.

"You know," he said to the ship casually. "He's probably dead by now. You may as well surrender to your new pilot."

The TARDIS whirred and sparks flew from the closest group of cables, almost catching the Master in the eye. He angrily grabbed the Doctor's goggles and slipped them on over his head. "You'll regret that, you great piece of tin!" He began yanking and pulling at every wire he could find, explosions running amok until the power suddenly drained and the console room was plunged into semi-darkness; only a few background lights let the Master see what he was doing.

He cackled and laughed, only disappointed that no one was around to hear it. "You'll be mine soon, little TARDIS..."

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The small group of about twenty Time Lords packed as much ammunition as they could. The Doctor noted that most of their weapons were homemade; as a race, they had no need for weapons until war parked itself on their front steps. "Romana," the Doctor asked softly, following her at the front of the group. She and a male Time Lord, whose name the Doctor didn't catch, were at opposite ends of the platoon, giving the group cover by way of a perception filter. The Daleks overhead were still scrambled, but there was an army approaching from the East, creatures that the Doctor remembered all too well. Meanwhiles and Never-Weres.

"Yes, Doctor?"

"He called you Madame President." It felt so strange to be speaking in his native tongue without the TARDIS there to translate; even though she could translate almost any language, he often spoke human languages around his companions to make it easier on her.

"Yes, I know." She led the group around an outcropping of trees, to bring the Citadel of the Time Lords into view. "Rassilon deposed me, but several Time Lords disagreed with his questionable methods. He was quick to remove them from their Council positions and they decided to join me."

"I see," he replied softly. The Time Lords around him were glancing at him with barely contained hatred. It was his fault they were stuck inside the Time Lock, after all. They were the middle ground between Romana and Rassilon, forced to pick the less insane side.

The perception filter held well; the EMP burst had been set off just moments before Romana and her group had found the Doctor and the Daleks were still trying to regain their bearings. Hundreds of their ships had already been destroyed, littering the ground. The Doctor was more concerned with the army that seemed to be marching straight for the Citadel. Their black bodies gleamed in the sunlight ad they ran across the fields of red grass, reducing the blades to black smoke as they walked. Romana stopped the small group and stared out over the fields, grimly. "We need to beat them there."

"Yes, ma'am," the Time Lords behind her echoed softly. They continued on their march, more quickly now, the Doctor still trying to ignore the beat of four in his head.


	4. Chapter 4

The army of Meanwhiles and Never-Weres were creeping closer and closer to the Citadel of the Time Lords. The fields of red grass that stretched before them were melting before the Doctor's eyes, marring his memories of the days that he and the Master ran across them. Thinking of the Master made the drums beat just a fraction louder, enough to annoy him. They would never shut up and it was starting to hurt. He couldn't imagine having lived nine hundred years with this. It was no wonder the Master went mad.

The group crept along the rocky mountainside, one Earth minute before the Daleks would regain their normal function. The Doctor doubted that the perception filter would keep the Daleks away for very long, or really at all. He hoped that Romana had a plan.

Suddenly, a loud screech sounded over their heads and a large, metal object flew from the crown of the Citadel directly into the army that was marching toward it. Romana's eyes widened in fear. "No!"

The bomb crashed into a group of the black beasts and exploded in a burst of fluorescent green gas. The creatures fell in piles on top of one another. The gas hung over the field like an oppressive cloud of death. The Doctor watched in horror. "How could he use that?" The gas was the most effective weapon to combat the Meanwhiles and Never-Weres, but it was lethal to Time Lords. One breath guaranteed death in seconds, never mind their respiratory bypass system. And now it was all over, to be blown by the wind in any direction it chose. Romana pulled the collar of her military-like outfit over her mouth and nose, the rest of the group following suit. They quickly ran toward the Citadel, ignoring the Daleks above their heads that were seconds away from being fully functional.

She led them to a conspicuous looking group of trees and unceremoniously yanked one of them open. The trunk opened like a door and contained metal stairs that led downward into darkness. "Hurry up, get in!" The twenty or so Time Lords piled into what they were assuming to be a shelter of some sort, the Doctor and Romana following closely after. "There's an air shield down here," she announced. "The gas can't reach us."

"This is interesting," the Doctor mused, knocking a fist against the metal wall and immediately regretting it. The drums in his head seemed to reply, beating louder in response. He pinched the bridge of his nose in irritation.

"For the President," she explained. "An exit should anything terrible happen." She pulled a dark piece of cloth from her pocket and tied it around her gun, tying it to her belt. "It's funny to me that Time Lords should take such suspicious action as humans do. We are so mistrusting. And easy to abandon our own." She walked to the front of the group and led them along, the Doctor sticking close to her side. He wasn't exactly afraid of these other members of his species, but he knew they would probably try to hurt him if they got a chance. Romana was the only one keeping it from happening.

"Romana?" the Doctor asked softly, after several strained minutes of silence. They all carried the Gallifreyan equivalent of torches, as the power to this secret escape route had been cut off. Only the emergency air shield was still active.

"Yes, Doctor?" She shone her torch down the long metal hallway, noting that they had a significant distance yet to go before reaching the underside of the Citadel.

"Perhaps it isn't the best time, but Mesopotamia..."

"Oh, so you did find it. Good." She finally caught sight of a ladder at the end and increased their speed.

"Yes, I did, but how did you know-?"

"That the Nightmare Child had escaped?" She began ascending the ladder, then carefully pressed a hand to the metal door above her head. She closed her eyes and concentrated briefly, then heard a satisfying click, pushing the door up and open. "Psychic lock," she explained quickly, jumping back down to let the others go first. She turned back to the Doctor. "While you were trying to save Davros from it, it just... Disappeared right after you turned your back. The second Davros's ship was out of sight, the Nightmare Child disappeared as if it had never been. Almost as if eating the ship caused its death, but I knew that wasn't possible. We-"

There was the sudden sound of gunfire above their heads and Romana's eyes went wide, climbing up the ladder as fast as her lithe limbs could carry her. The Doctor followed seconds later, only to find the floor littered with weapons and nothing else. All twenty of the other Time Lords were gone. Rassilon stood before them with a smug smile on his face, glove glowing with recent use.

"You bastard. Some of them weren't even a hundred years old yet!" Romana raised her own gun to the President, but he was unfazed.

"Dear Romana, such silly games you play." His face was angry, staring down the Ex-President like a cat would stare down a rival for its food.

"I saw the bomb you dropped on the fields. Now every Time Lord that goes out there is sure to die." Her muscles were pulled taut in anger. Her whole body shook. The Doctor stuck to the shadows of the small room they had come into, staying on the ladder and out of sight. It had no windows and sparse lighting from the ceiling. He peered over the lip of the door and discovered that he was next to a pile of guns whose handles were still warm. It unnerved him, but the drums beat almost happily in his head, as if responding to objects of violence and death.

"A necessary price," Rassilon spoke smoothly. "Come with me, Romana. If we are to defeat these foes, the Time Lords must be reunited as one Council."

Romana shook her head, her dark hair melting into the shadows. "There are many who follow me, but are too afraid to disobey you. I do not blame them for staying, but I will not have their ideals betrayed."

"Then you must die!" Rassilon angrily brought his glove to shoulder height, the blue glow of the object lighting the dim room significantly. Romana stood with her gun at the ready, about to shoot.

Then Rassilon fell. His body crumpled to the floor with a thud and the blue glow of the glove faded into nothingness. Romana's dark eyes went wide in shock, then she quickly turned and backed away from the man who was holding the now-smoking gun.

The Doctor was staring at his hand as though it had betrayed him. He threw the device as far across the room as he could, causing it to hit the wall with a dull echo. The same hand made its way into his hair, pulling and running his fingers through it nervously. When he finally met Romana's eyes, his own were full of tears. "I didn't... I wasn't... I didn't mean to..."

"Doctor...?" She slowly approached him as he climbed the rest of the way out of the hole.

"I didn't mean to," he said quickly. "I just... I didn't know what was going on. They wanted me to do it."

"They?" She quickly wiped away the tears that were falling down his face.

He had forgotten that small bit of information, hadn't he? "The drums," he answered softly. "The Master's drums are in my head now. I did say there was a pre-existing signal... They are so strong. In his head for nine hundred years. They won't be quiet..."

Romana searched his eyes for remorse and found enough for a lifetime. She turned back to Rassilon's body and found it already repairing itself from the shot to the forehead. He had discovered the secret of immortality, or so the legend went. She wasn't entirely sure if it was immortality, but she had seen him come back from many things. She surmised that it had something to do with that glove of his.

She grabbed the Doctor's hand. "Come on. We need to get to the Spire. We can send out another EMP wave from there, one large enough to cover most of the planet and give our people an edge against the Daleks." He nodded like a shy child and she pulled him away.

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As they ran through the deserted halls of the Citadel, the Doctor slowly began to regain his composure. The familiar hallways jogged his memory and he eventually began to speak again. Romana was grateful; a quiet Doctor was never normal. "I wonder where everyone is. Surely every single Time Lord isn't fighting."

"They might be home with their families," he offered, staring up at the ceiling of one of the Citadel's grand lobbies. His family was here... Perhaps somewhere. He wanted to go look for them, but he had no idea where they might be. Time was running out; this was the final day of the Time War, which meant it was one day before everything inside the Time Lock would die. Including _her_. He peered over at Romana, who was making her way through a pile of rubble. The Citadel had its own air shield, as well as several defense mechanisms that had either already been destroyed or used to full capacity. The gas bomb had been their last weapon.

They finally found the correct set of stairs and began running up them. "You know," the Doctor said, in an attempt to clear the air. "I always said we should have used the idea for elevators."

This made her smile a bit and he grinned in triumph. They continued up to the next landing, the Doctor skidding to a halt as he heard a male voice yelling, somewhere down the hall. It wasn't Rassilon, but he couldn't tell who exactly it was. He cleared his throat and ventured a "Hello?"

A man covered in dust emerged from an open door halfway down the ornately decorated hallway. He held a hand to his mouth and coughed hard. There must be dust in his lungs, the both of them thought. Romana blinked twice. "Wait, Drax? Is that you?"

"Oh, Lady Romana! The ceiling caved in!" Drax stumbled forward a bit, coughing hard. She ran to catch him, the Doctor hot on her heels. He had a grin on his face like a kid in a candy store.

"Drax!" He said excitedly, brushing the dust off the other man's Council robes. "It's so nice to see you again, old friend!"

Drax shook the dust from his head to reveal – what else? - ginger hair. "Who... Doctor?"

The Doctor threw his arms wide. "The one and only!" He quickly embraced his friend, then pulled back and frowned. "Why is everyone ginger except me?"

"You look so different, Doctor! Where are you at now?" Drax coughed again, straightening himself up to his full height.

"Eleven," he replied mischievously. "Been a bit busy."

"Eleven?" Romana asked incredulous. "What little we got out of the Master said you were on ten!"

"Yes, well... Wait, what?" The Doctor immediately turned all of his attention to Romana. "Got out of the Master? Was he imprisoned?"

She nodded, putting an arm around Drax after noting a nasty sprained ankle. "Rassilon imprisoned him as soon as Gallifrey was righted. He also, in his infinite wisdom, gave him 12 new regenerations."

"What!"

"He wanted the Master to suffer through his greatest fear as many times as possible. What better way to do it than let him be killed over and over again in the Last Great Time War?"

The Doctor puffed out his cheeks and moved to Drax's other side to help. "That certainly sounds like Rassilon."

"It does, doesn't it?"

The man himself stood at the top of the stairs they had just ascended. They had been too busy talking to notice his approach. The Doctor cursed his loud voice and incessant talking, as much as he loved to do it. The Time Lord President wasted no time in raising the glove's blue light to the three. Drax lurched forward before the Doctor and Romana could stop him, taking two steps before he was dissolved into nothingness with a scream.

The Doctor felt like shooting Rassilon again. He had barely reunited with his friend, and that friend was already dead. The man was a tyrant, but there was little to be done about it now, in the grand scheme of things. The drums echoed the blood in his veins and he felt the intense urge to make Rassilon scream in pain. They knew how to take over now; they knew how it was done.

Romana steeled her resolve and grabbed the Doctor's hand once again, pulling him toward the staircase that led further upward. Rassilon followed as quickly as he could manage, his Council robes slowing his speed considerably. In his conceit, he wouldn't remove them, which made them a boon for the pair running upward toward the Spire.

Unfortunately for the Doctor and Romana, they never arrived.

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><p>Oops. Cliffhanger. Maybe I'm slightly evil.<p>

Please review! They give me motivation to write more!


	5. Chapter 5

**Warning****:** Character death. Sorry everyone. Especially you, Ace.

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><p>"What's that noise?" The Doctor stepped up onto the landing and the ceiling promptly exploded.<p>

Romana screamed and grabbed his arm, pulling him back and covering her face as best she could. A Dalek ship fell through the red sky and smashed through five higher floors of the Citadel, the ceiling directly above them, and came to rest just a few meters in front of the Doctor, completely destroying their path to the Spire. Dust and rubble coated the air and they coughed hard to clear their lungs. The building felt unstable now, but there was nothing to be done. They briefly wondered if the Spire was still intact. The crashed ship was half buried, but that didn't keep the few remaining living Daleks from pouring out a gash in the side. "EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!"

Romana raised her gun and deftly shot each one of the monsters in the eyestalk, blinding them. The Doctor was cowering behind her, trying to shake the dust and rubble from his clothes and hair. He peered back over his shoulder and spotted Rassilon making his final ascent. He wasn't sure who was worse, the renegade Time Lord or the Daleks. "Romana!"

She whirled around to find Rassilon glaring at the both of them, glove at the ready. He really should get rid of that ancient old thing. She shot it with her gun and the metal received a nicely shaped dent, making Rassilon swear aloud in pain. The Daleks immediately turned on the President of the Time Lords, though their vision was still compromised, and he melted them away as fast as he had done to Drax only minutes before. "Come on!"

The Time Lord and Lady ran headlong into the winding corridors of the Citadel as Rassilon fought with the Daleks. "Romana," the Doctor spoke hurriedly. "I think I can get back out of here and to my TARDIS, but I need that ship-"

"Alright, but we need to get away from Rassilon first," she replied, reloading her gun. The Doctor frowned disapprovingly at the weapon, but knew it was one of the reasons they were still alive.

They darted away, running through the annoyingly long hallways. The Doctor wished their footsteps wouldn't echo on the floor as they ran. He spent a significant portion of the run looking around the hall in wonder, remembering the many times he had seen the paintings and tapestries during school. Romana ushered him into a room on their right and she closed the door behind them as silently as she could. This upper section of the Citadel was internally circular, so several of the rooms were connected by doors. They could creep from room to room and hopefully make it back to the crash site with enough time to let the Doctor scrounge around inside the ship and find what he was looking for. Hopefully.

Romana slowly led him from room to room, being as quiet as possible. Rassilon would no doubt be looking through these rooms himself and they wanted no indication left that they had been there. The rooms were filled with Earth-esque fireplaces, ornately carved tables, and several Gallifreyan art forms, including psychic paintings. Special psychic paper took on the colors and shapes that the artist concentrated on. Though, it would pick up any stray thoughts, so the artist had to be extremely careful of their thought process while painting.

"Romana," the Doctor spoke softly, as they crept across a notably beautiful rug from Crespallion.

"What?" Rassilon's angry voice echoed through the hall outside and she could hear him destroying door after door. Lucky for them, there were well over a hundred.

"The Nightmare Child destroyed New Logopolis," he began, but she cut him off.

"But you found Mesopotamia!" she hissed. "You didn't lock it away?"

"It wasn't there when I found the planet!" he hissed back, in explanation. "Daleks were there and they destroyed everything... The entire planet went into atomic detonation, I couldn't stop it."

"So the prison is..."

"The Nightmare Child is there _now_... Imprisoned, just as you planned. A clever cell, if I do say so, Lady Romana." He gave her a cheeky smile and they quickly crept through the next room, one that seemed to contain several relics and art pieces from Krafalla 3. "But it destroyed their whole planet. They survived the initial destruction of their planet by the Master, traveling to your favorite pocket universe." She groaned and he smiled in amusement. E-Space had been Romana's residence for a significant part of her life. "But they came back to help stave off the decay of the universe, only..."

"They're back there now," she finished. "And I'm guessing that your companion is with them."

He frowned at her. "How could you know that?"

"Because the light in your eyes is gone," she explained quietly. "That happens when you lose someone close to you. And it's been recent."

"A year," he replied, as they crossed into yet another room. By Romana's estimate, they were almost there.

"A year is recent for us," she replied, in an almost motherly way. He raised an eyebrow at her tone. They continued on, reaching the last door before they could hopefully sneak into the gutted Dalek ship.

"How did you get it into the prison anyway?" Romana asked, curious.

"Used the TARDIS to counteract its electrical field," he whispered. They crept to the door that led back to the hallway and the Doctor placed an ear against it, straining to hear anything Dalek or Time Lord. Or anything else.

"That's it?" She drew her head back. "It should have given you far more trouble than that. The Nightmare Child is a genius."

"The Nightmare Child is a genius? What do you mean?" He heard nothing from behind the door, but that didn't mean that the hall was empty.

"I mean precisely what I said," she responded. "The creature is insane, to be sure, but it's the most intelligent being in the universe. It cracked the Stasis Paradigm, Doctor. I was sure you would have realized that by now."

"The most intelligent..." He trailed off, thinking to himself, then realized the implication of her words and spun to face her, more hope in his eyes than she had seen since he returned. "What?"

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"You heard me," Romana hissed, as she gathered up the cords that were roiling out of the Dalek ship.

"But how can that be?" The Doctor asked, for the fourth time. "The Nightmare Child is a genius from the beginning of the universe? That doesn't make any sense."

"It does if you realize that the beginning of the universe was the Big Bang, beginning with a point of almost infinite density, and-"

"No entropy..." He finished her sentence and stared at her in both shock and delight. "No entropy would make it practically immortal. It would never be able to die. But you said it was insane?"

"In a sense," she replied softly, looking nervously out of the maw that the crash had made in the side of the ship. They hadn't seen Rassilon again, but it was entirely possible he knew of pathways that she didn't. He had been instrumental in the construction of this building, after all. "It searches the stars for a way to die. Didn't you try talking to it?"

"I was a bit busy running for my life, thanks," he snapped back, connecting several cords to the shell of a dead Dalek. The creatures had an emergency temporal shift that would send them to anywhere and anytime at random. However, "With the proper calibration and the signal in my head, I should be able to get this shell to transport me back into my TARDIS."

"And how are you going to do that with such limited resources?" she asked, a bit cheekily.

"Not sure." He paused. "Then again, I never am." He went back to rummaging through the wires, then abruptly turned back to his companion. "Unfortunately, that will also force the Master back here..." He trailed off, wringing his hands nervously and watching her expression. This was her third face and already her eyes were so old.

"Don't worry about me, Doctor. Rassilon and the Master will undoubtedly be fighting. I don't actually think that Rassilon realizes who you are. He isn't used to this face." She continued to yank and pull cords and wires out of the wall to her right.

"I'd like to keep it that way, if it's all the same to you," he responded cheekily, sonicing the Dalek's casing and cowering as a sudden shower of sparks flew into the air. "I don't think he can hear us down here, but all the same-"

"Lady Romana! Lord Doctor!"

They froze and turned to one another. That was definitely the President. He sounded much more than just angry. Romana nodded to her companion and she started out, but the Doctor grabbed her arm. "You can't go out there just to let him kill you-"

"I'm going to die here, Doctor, whether it by Rassilon's hand of the hands of our Time War enemies. At least let me die doing something useful. The Master cannot run rampant across the universe; no one can stand up to him but you." She readied her gun and the Doctor reluctantly returned to working as fast as his gangly arms would allow.

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Romana carefully stepped from the gash in the ship to face Rassilon, who was staring at her as smugly as his angry face would allow. He held in his ungloved hand an orb that swirled all colors at once, and yet seemed almost smoke-like in its construction. "W-what are you doing with that?"

"Did you _actually_ think that I would let him escape again?" he screamed. "It is his fault the Sanction failed, his fault that Gallifrey lost its proper place in the sky, _his_ fault that our people have been destroyed!"

"That's not true," Romana shot back. "If it wasn't for the Doctor, the rest of the universe would be gone too."

"So it would. Nothing less than what they deserve," he sneered, watching the orb in his hand twist and turn. "The Final Sanction will come to pass. If it cannot be served in the universe, then at least I will have the satisfaction of destroying the Doctor once and for all!"

"Sorry mate, I don't think so." The Doctor stepped out of the rubble, carrying the gutted shell and trailing wires after him. Several of them sat on his face like electrodes, meant to follow the signal back to his TARDIS.

Rassilon moved to smash the orb, but Romana quickly shot him, in the precise spot the Doctor had. His body fell and she rushed to catch the orb before it hit the ground and carried out Rassilon's intent. The Doctor watched her, surprised, but paid more attention to the colors within the orb.

Romana rushed back to his side and carefully handed the orb over to him. "The Final Sanction," she explained quickly. "Most do not know what it entails, but as the President, we are given this knowledge through the sacred symbols of Rassilon. This orb was harvested from the Nightmare Child."

"What?" He gently took the orb and turned it over in his hand. It seemed to glow slightly at his touch.

"It isn't evil. It never was. This orb was its... humanity. Essentially, this is its heart." She turned to see Rassilon's body begin to repair itself again and she shook her head sadly. "The body has been running, trying to die because it cannot find the piece of itself that it is missing. By destroying this, destroying the heart of the only being ever to crack the Stasis Paradigm, the creature would lash out and destroy Time itself."

The Doctor finally put the last piece of the puzzle together. "And it fought in the war... It knew we had its heart."

She nodded. "Disconnected from its heart as it is, the heart would destroy everything in the Time Lock and the Nightmare Child will never be whole again. I didn't actually know its true identity until it was too late to prevent Rassilon from stealing it," she admitted, sounding guilty. "You must return it. By returning its heart, it will become logical again. I hope." A groan sounded behind her and she turned to find Rassilon attempting to climb to his feet. She readied her gun once more. "You have to go now. Lock on to the signal and go!"

"But..." He stared at her. He couldn't take her with him; the signal was only in his head. But if there was some way to put it in hers as well...

"I said go!" She almost hit him in the arm. "I know what you're thinking, but I'd rather be dead than have those damn drums in my head for even a second. Now hurry up!"

Rassilon screamed in rage, holding his glowing hand to the Time Lady that was standing in his way. The Doctor quickly kissed her on the forehead. "Thank you, Romana. I won't forget."

She smiled at him one last time. "You better not." She stood as a shield to her best friend as he aimed his sonic screwdriver at the ship, powering up the back up engines and activating the shell's emergency temporal shift. The electrodes on his face were shocking him, rather painfully, but he gritted his teeth in determination. He focused on the intense beating behind his eyes, Romana's body dissolving into dust at the call of Rassilon's glove. Tears sprung to his eyes as she died, but before he could say anything more, his vision went black.


	6. Chapter 6

I didn't realize until now how short this story is going to be. I had thought it was going to be longer, even though everything's turning out just how I wanted. (I suppose stories full of action end up that way. Oh well.) At least the end is in sight! One more chapter after this one! HUGE reveal in this chapter, too. Please review!

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><p>A faint hum brought the Doctor back to consciousness.<p>

His eyes shot open and he stood as quickly as he could, gripping the TARDIS console to keep himself steady. His vision was blurry and his legs felt like fresh Jell-o, but he was back where he belonged. His Sexy girl hummed happily, finally freed from the grasp of the Master, who had torn her apart from below. He peered down through the glass floor and gaped. "That... tosser!"

He started down the stairs, then almost blacked out again as the drums rose up in his mind, beating furiously, angrily. He stumbled and tripped, grabbing for the railing to stay upright. Ah, so that was what he was forgetting.

The Doctor launched himself at the nearest chair, willing his mind to stabilize long enough to make it to the medical bay. He gripped the edge of the chair in his hands, concentrating on the worried hum of his beloved time machine. He quickly jumped to his feet and flew up the stairs, taking two rights, a left, a set of stairs down, and three more rights. The medical bay wasn't in the greatest place, but it was better here than further away.

He quickly began sonicing the medical equipment, pulling wires and yanking cords. He gathered the required machines, of which there were two, and began the long run back to the console room. The drums thrummed behind his eyes and they felt like the worst headache imaginable. The Master was undoubtedly fighting to regain control of the teleportation, but he wouldn't let the other Time Lord have that chance. Romana died for this; he would succeed.

He burst into the control room and began pulling out several buttons, threading the cords from the machines into the spots that the buttons had just occupied. These machines possessed electrodes as well, ones that were eerily similar to the ones that were now undoubtedly on the Master's own head. The Doctor quickly placed them on his face in the correct positions and swallowed nervously.

"Okay old girl, this is important. You have to get this signal out of my head." He and the TARDIS had been psychically linked for well over seven hundred years; there was no one better to destroy a link that had been implanted in his mind. He grabbed the wibbly lever and pulled.

A surge of pain erupted behind his green eyes and he screamed. He gripped the console with white knuckles, enduring a pain almost as intense as regeneration. He could feel the TARDIS gently crawling into his head, searching and grasping for the sound. He concentrated on it a bit harder; perhaps that would help her find it. He heard them over the pain, just barely, and felt the TARDIS wrap her mind around it. He smiled in relief, then screamed as she yanked it away from him. He fell to the ground in agony and everything went black once more.

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Over an Earth hour later, the Doctor woke to the pleasant hum of his TARDIS. He felt dizzy and sick, but the sound in his head was gone. Blessed silence! "I can hear my own thoughts again!"

He carefully picked himself up off the floor, inhaling deeply. He leaned back against the console for several minutes, trying to regain his bearings. His memory was a bit muddled, but that would fix itself with time. He hoped.

But there was something he was forgetting, something important. Something that... someone had told him. He smacked himself in the forehead and immediately regretted it as a wave of dizziness rushed over him. He stumbled forward and grabbed the railing, torso half over the side. And then he remembered.

"_The Nightmare Child is a genius._"

More than intelligent enough to perform Block Transfer Computations.

_Felicity._ He reached into his bigger-on-the-inside pockets and drew out the orb that was the heart of the Nightmare Child. He watched the colors ripple across its surface and got a grin on his face the size of the creature itself. With this, he could get her back.

He gently placed the heart on the TARDIS's console where it would be safe, then launched himself down the stairs, determined to repair all of the damage the Master had caused.

A full eight hours later, the TARDIS was restored to proper working order. He had tested her a few times, finding that she tended to appear in female public restrooms.

He quickly set course for Mesopotamia and for the prison inside, where the Nightmare Child was trapped.

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The TARDIS whirred and flickered into existence mere feet from the creature that was trapped in its own personal Time Lock. The core of Mesopotamia was just as quiet as it had been when he first came here, which had been only an hour ago in linear time. The Doctor drew the creature's heart from his pocket, to prevent it from attacking him as soon as it was released.

He approached the computer and sonic'd it, watching it glow in satisfaction. "Password?" the machine questioned.

"Jelly babies," he replied. The machine made a loud click and it echoed within the hollow shell of the planet. The crown of electricity surrounding the Nightmare Child slowly began to disappear. The Doctor swallowed in nervousness, taking a few steps back just in case.

The creature was frozen one moment, then moving and screaming the next. It rolled from the platform onto the bridge, screeching and writhing in confusion. The Doctor was unsure of just what to do. _Do I... throw it at it?_

Suddenly, the creature turned and seemed to see him. It bounded toward him, but he quickly held up the orb before it came too close. The Nightmare Child skidded to a halt inches from the Doctor's face and seemed to be staring at the orb in fascination.

It's black tendrils swirled toward its heart, then drew it inside itself, like an amoeba to food. The Doctor jumped back as the creature began to twitch and writhe, then suddenly fell down inside itself, becoming smaller and smaller until-

"Hello, Doctor."

The Doctor was staring in intense confusion. The Nightmare Child had transformed itself into an exact replica of little Amelia when she was seven. "Of course," he murmured. "The Nightmare _Child_. You take on the form of the child that is most important to the person you are communicating with. It practically guarantees that the person will be calm and resist hostile action. That's very clever," he rattled off, wagging a finger at the little Amelia. He felt the creature very gently touch just the very outer edge of his mind, then grinned as it began speaking perfect Gallifreyan.

"That is correct, Doctor." The voice was somewhere between masculine and feminine, but not unpleasant. "I thank you for returning my heart to me."

The Doctor nodded in response. "It is the least I could do. You had every right to be angry."

"I understand what it is that you want me to do for you. Block Transfer Computations are simple. I will perform them as you ask, but I require one thing in return."

"Anything you like," the Doctor replied, with a silly grin on his face.

"It matters not to me where I perform them from, as I need no food and do not have a respiratory system. However, I have spent several billion years killing and destroying those that did nothing to me. To bring them back would upset the delicate balance of time, but-"

"I promise," the Doctor interrupted, understanding where this was going. "I will bring my companions to visit whenever you like. Just send me a message." He paused, then added "psychic paper," as an explanation.

The little Amelia nodded in satisfaction. "Then I shall do as you ask. I cannot guarantee the safety of your machine during the travel, as the rules vary slightly from universe to universe."

"Oh, don't you worry about her," he said joyfully, leading the now friendly Nightmare Child into the TARDIS. "She'll make it." He patted the TARDIS's blue wood fondly.

"Oh," the child said softly. "I did not realize."

"Realize what?" The Doctor bounded up the steps to the console, then turned to the Nightmare Child expectantly.

"She says that she misses being able to speak to you. In her... flesh body."

The Doctor stared for a full minute, then slowly approached the child. "You can talk to her?"

"I can do whatever it is that I wish," Little Amelia replied, then smiled a bit cheekily. "It does feel odd to take a humanoid form after such a long time. I will need to grow accustomed to it again."

"Can you..." The Doctor started, but the Child quickly interrupted him.

"She already knows."

The Doctor nodded and let a small smile grace his face. The TARDIS suddenly lurched to the side, but the Child and the Doctor weren't thrown in random directions as they normally would have. The Child kept them both perfectly still and the Doctor almost yelled in glee and excitement.

The TARDIS landed with a very gentle thud. The Child smiled satisfactorily, then walked toward the doors. "Wait!"

The Child turned back. "Yes, Doctor?"

"Where are we? I'll need to find you again, you know," he said, shaking a finger in the Child's general direction.

Little Amelia's face just split into a grin. "That's an easy one. Take a look."

The Doctor crossed to the doors and threw them open. And blinked. "Ha!" He took a good long look at the Earth, peeking out over the lunar landscape. The moon! That was an interesting place to be. The last time he was here, there was a certain Doctor-in-training and a platoon of Judoon.

"Now you can't interfere in the workings of the universe-"

"I am aware, Doctor. I can see the threads of time even better than you can. I shall not interfere."

Speaking to "Amelia" like this was a bit disconcerting. Nevertheless, he smiled and nodded a farewell. "Psychic paper, remember. And the TARDIS isn't always completely reliable, so don't worry if we're late." He wrung his hands a bit.

The Child looked at him in amusement. "I won't, Doctor. Thank you again."

The Doctor smiled in both happiness and pride. He had returned this gorgeous thing to its former beauty. He hoped that it would forever be a friend. The thought passed through his mind that the Child was the closest that the universe had to a God.

He bid farewell to the Child, then excitedly set the TARDIS's course. He scanned the space around the planet Earth and CVEs were popping up everywhere. He knew exactly where she had gone, E-Space, and set the coordinates carefully. The TARDIS groaned in protest and threw him to the side, almost sending him over the railing as she lurched. The experience was unpleasant and he had several bruises by the time they reached the green-tinted universe.

The Doctor pulled himself up from the stairs and pulled the scanner around. He had no real indication of which planet they had ended up on, or if they were even still there. The few Logopolitans that had survived were a studious sort; he was sure they were still around. A lifeform scan revealed the existence of Logopolitans on only one planet, so he set the TARDIS's course. She tossed him about like a salad and he landed with a resounding thud. He straightened up, then noticed the screen and his face fell.

They were five years off, in the future to be precise. He frowned and was about to correct the coordinates when there came a furious knocking on the police box doors. He sighed and ran a hand down his face. He could just leave now, but that could be crossing his own timeline and that was disastrous. Not to mention ridiculously inconvenient.

He walked to the door and opened it to find a very welcome face. "Doctor!"

"Monitor! You're alive!" He quickly embraced the courageous Logopolitan. "Good to see you again!"

"I can't believe you escaped, we all thought you were dead."

"Nope," he replied cheekily. "The universe just can't seem to get rid of me. Ooh, these are nice." He stepped away from the TARDIS and spun around, taking in the makeshift buildings all around them.

"They were here when we got here," the Monitor explained. "A dead civilization."

"Ah," the Doctor paused, then coughed. "Monitor, I hate to be single-minded, but Felicity-"

"Oh! Your friend, yes. She's alive! Though she hasn't gone by that name in quite some time." The Monitor hurried off to his left with the Doctor in tow. "Come, she's this way. She's been invaluable in helping us survive here. Brilliant, she is."

The Doctor smiled a bit, taking comfort in that he had something to do with that. The Monitor led him through several empty streets and the clay buildings began to just melt together in the Doctor's mind. He wondered how they could possibly keep them all straight.

The Monitor arrived at what the Time Lord assumed to be a Town Hall or meeting place of sorts. "Doctor, I should warn you, she isn't going to be the woman you remember."

They ascended the low steps and the Doctor raised an eyebrow at the Logopolitan. "It's only been five years, how much can a human change in that time?"

"Well, actually, I should probably explain that, you see..."

"See what?" They entered the front doors and were immediately swarmed with Logopolitans, who were excitedly greeting the Doctor and expressing their happiness at his continued existence. He greeted them all, but paused their questions with a hand. "Sorry everyone, looking for Felicity. The Monitor's said she's still alive, I'd like to see her."

Several of the Logopolitans glanced at one another, then they quietly shuffled away, sounds of "I haven't heard that name in ages" and "He's not going to be very happy" reached his ears. The Doctor turned to the Monitor. "At the risk of sounding rude, what's going on?"

"She's different now, Doctor. When I carried her through the CVE, she was dying. The golden light that you gave to her, I don't know what it was precisely, but it did something to her."

"Something bad?" he asked softly. That wasn't his intention at all. He had given her precious artron energy, meant to heal the injury to hear head and sustain her. It was meant to make her live.

"No! Well, not really, no. It depends on what you mean by 'bad'. She is physically healthy, if that is what you mean."

"Then that's good enough for me!" He declared, motioning for the Monitor to please continue the leading process and don't stop again or I will become cross. The Monitor led him to what he assumed was an office, with the door propped open.

"She's inside," The Monitor said softly. "And remember, she's not the same person."

The Doctor waved him off and the man left, not wanting to incur the wrath of a Time Lord. The Doctor approached the doorway and stepped into its light.

His voice immediately caught in his throat upon seeing her. His eyes were surely playing tricks on him. This was impossible. And yet...

He looked her up and down, taking in her hair that was now blond and very curly. Her eyes were no longer the brown that matched her mother's, but the green that matched her father's. Her height was about the same, but she walked so differently; internally, he marveled that this difference existed, a difference that was so very Time Lord, though its owner definitely was not. She looked so very different, but the glimmer, the shine in her eyes was the very same.

She straightened up from her leaning position over the table. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, just as it had been when he lost her. She saw him out of the corner of her eye and her head snapped to face him. It was a long moment before she spoke, as if she was trying to decide whether or not he was truly standing right there; he noted that she hadn't moved a single muscle in her body, not even to breathe. Both sudden and expected, she smiled. It was the first smile to reach those glimmering eyes in five years. "Hello, sweetie."

"Hello Felicity," he said, leaning against the door frame. He couldn't help the grin on his face. It felt strange having such a genuine smile there, when it had been vacant for so long.

"Not Felicity anymore, I'm afraid," she said, her voice crisp. "It's River now. River Song."

"I know," he replied, his voice full of that know-it-all tone that she had missed so much.

She smiled again. "You always do."


	7. Chapter 7

Here we go, the last chapter in Felicity's story! Quite a bit of explanation and River back-story here. And a bit of fluff, 'cause who can resist that, right? I hope you all like it!

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><p>"So..."<p>

"Yes?" River gave him a know-it-all smile, the one that he was so used to seeing grace her face. They were walking through the garden that she had helped the Logopolitans grow. She had spent weeks traveling across the surface of the planet, discovering different edible plants and the sparse animal populations that live on the rocky surface. Together, they managed to grow a garden to help sustain the population with minimal meat consumption. The Doctor was a bit impressed.

"This garden, does it survive all year round?"

She nodded. "The seasons here are similar, but there is a long trek before any drinkable water. We have to walk every week and boil it to make it suitable. No ships travel this way and we don't really know anything about this universe."

He nodded, pleased. "Made from bits of string," he said admiringly.

"Oh stop," she said, shoving him gently in the arm. They were both avoiding the obvious elephant in the room, but the Doctor couldn't avoid it forever.

"You changed," he said softly, looking at her face carefully for any signs of distress. There were none.

She just nodded. "I did. I was dying and when the Monitor brought me over through the CVE, the Logopolitans were sure I was having a seizure. I lost consciousness and when I woke up..." She spread her arms and gestured a bit awkwardly to herself. "No more ginger hair," she said, a bit sadly.

"You regenerated," he concluded. "I didn't plan that," he added quickly.

She smirked. "I didn't think you did. I don't resent it."

He nodded slowly in thought. He was thankful that she didn't resent him for it. It was unintentional, but it saved her life. Worth it in the end, he decided. "You're 28 now."

"I am," she smiled. "I feel significantly older than that."

"I'm sorry," he said softly, stopping in front of a particularly tasty looking... Well, he assumed it was a vegetable. It smelled delicious. He drew her close into an abrupt hug that was both surprising and long overdue. She returned it and the stress in her bones melted away. "You lost five years of your life here because of me. I told Amy and Rory you were gone." He paused. "I thought you were dead."

"But you came back for me anyway," she chided gently. "I knew you would. You always do."

He rubbed her back soothingly, then suddenly let go as a thought occurred to him. "Hold on, you've all only been here five years, where did all of these buildings come from?"

River dropped her arms and laughed. "I was wondering when you'd notice. Come on, I'll show you."

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She led the Doctor back into the large building and through several winding hallways before entering a large room with makeshift tables and-

"What!" The Doctor ran over to the tables, inspecting the objects that were sitting carefully on them. He made a point to pull out the sonic screwdriver while River watched, amused. "_This_ is what you've been doing?"

"What's wrong with archeology?" she protested, crossing the room to swipe a piece of pottery out of his hands.

He gestured to himself in thinly veiled disgust. "Time traveler!"

She repeated his movements, gesturing to herself. "Stuck here for five years!" She carefully set the vase down, making sure he hadn't damaged it in any way. "How else was I supposed to travel through time?"

He froze, turning from his close inspection of a bowl to look at her face. She wouldn't look at him, but was instead carefully caressing the vase, running her fingers over the shallow grooves. He felt the realization sink in and ran a hand down his face. She let go of the vase and he drew her into another hug. "I'm so sorry," he murmured into her hair. He had always wondered why archeology, but it made sense; she had to have some way to travel through time when he wasn't there.

She didn't cry. River never cried. Felicity never had either, at least not for herself. Instead, she accepted his embrace and they stood there for a very long time.

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"Are you sure you don't want to come back?"

The Monitor shook his head. "You have given us a new planet, River. Our mission in our universe will be forever accomplished thanks to the efforts of the Doctor and the newly restored Nightmare Child."

"It needs a new name," the Doctor pondered. He had spent a better part of an hour explaining everything that had happened since he had lost Felicity. The Logopolitans had listened attentively, nodding and speaking quietly among themselves.

"We can live here and perform the same computations if this universe is ever threatened," one of them spoke up. "We have grown accustomed to this place. It is simple and we enjoy living here."

The Doctor nodded. "Far be it from me to take you where you don't want to go!" He turned to River, who had packed up her few things before their group talk. "Ready to go? You've got some parents to see."

She nodded and stepped forward to hug the Monitor. "I wish you all safety and the best of days."

The lead Logopolitans smiled a warm goodbye. "You are both welcome to visit any time you wish." They bid the two time travelers goodbye and they set off for the TARDIS.

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River gave a sigh of familiarity and relief as she stepped into the time machine. She immediately tossed her makeshift bag down and ran up to the console, running her hands over the bits and bobs. The TARDIS hummed almost excitedly. The Doctor bounded up the steps behind her. "Well? Ready to go home?"

She grinned. "Let's go!"

Exactly seven minutes later, after quite a bit of tossing and turning, they were back on Earth. River immediately ran out the double doors, intent on finding her parents. "Wait!" The Doctor ran out after her, gently grabbing her arm. "She over shot a bit," he said nervously. "It's been about a month since I... told them you were dead."

"Wait, you told them I was_ dead_?"

"I wasn't sure if I would ever get you back!" He insisted, aware of how suddenly romantic that sounded. He nervously scratched his head and she half rolled her eyes at him in a way that was so very familiar.

"You can't get rid of me that easily," she chided. He smiled a bit and held out an arm for her to take. They walked arm in arm up to the Williams' back porch, which looked exactly the same as she remembered it. She briefly wondered just what they had done about her sudden disappearance. Parents with a missing daughter spent months searching for her, but by the time they knew she was gone, she was dead. Parents not searching for their missing daughter would be very suspicious.

They energetically bounded up the wooden stairs, River taking in the flowers that had been left untended for a long time. She briefly lost her smile; her parents had lost their only child after being able to never have any more. She couldn't imagine how they felt. She was glad they wouldn't have to feel like that any more.

River gently knocked on the sliding glass door. From the sun, it was early afternoon and her father wouldn't be home for several hours. There was no answer, so she knocked a bit louder. The Doctor was fidgeting excitedly, unable to stand still. He was bouncing on his feet and she had to pull him closer to her to make him stop.

When Amy finally came into view, River stopped breathing. Her mother looked so much older than she remembered. The lines on her face were deeper and her eyes were rimmed red; she looked as though she had been crying. The Doctor was both concerned and brimming with nervous energy. The ginger woman froze in place as soon as she saw the two of them standing at the door. She stood there for several seconds and River waved tentatively. Amy was determined that her spat was with the Doctor, not River; she marched over, yanked open the door, and pulled River in. The Doctor was shut outside, much to his disappointment.

"What do you want, River?" Amy crossed her arms angrily. "I don't want him anywhere near me or my husband."

"How do you know my name?" She asked, confused. She turned to the Doctor and mouthed the question and he suddenly seemed quite interested in the wood of the deck. River fumed and if glares could kill, they would have had a regenerating Time Lord in their back yard.

"Time lines," Amy mumbled, wiping her eyes as gracefully as she could. Her fingernails were bare; that wasn't normal. She always had a vibrant color on her fingers.

River swallowed. "There wasn't an English test," she said softly.

Amy's face melted. "What?"

"I told you that Mr. Richards had announced an English test. That was a lie." Amy was completely silent, staring at the woman she had known for much longer than she realised. "I made that call when I was 18. You said my voice sounded different. That's why."

"How dare you-"

"No!" River gently grabbed her hand, eyes begging for her to listen. "Ever since I was a little girl, you told me stories about the Doctor. You drew the first picture of the TARDIS I ever had. It's hanging over my side table," she said confidently, knowing instinctively that neither parent had touched anything in her room. "You were always mad that I took Dad's accent over yours, even though I looked just like you."

Amy cautiously accepted River's hand, watching her earnest face in confusion and wonder, tears running down her face. "I don't understand."

"Yes you do! It's me." She reached up to tuck her mother's hair behind her ear, something that she had done to tease her since she was a small child. "It's me, Mom. It's Liss."

"Oh my god." The ginger woman launched herself at her daughter and she was a sobbing mess in seconds. River buried her face in her mother's shoulder, but the moment was ruined by a soft knock on the glass. The two women looked over to see the Doctor sheepishly waving, asking to come in. Amy marched over and threw the door open, grabbing him by the bow tie and pulling him into the house. "You said she was dead!"

"I thought she was!" He said, practically hiding behind River.

"Okay," she said, crossing her arms and flopping down on the couch. "Start talking."

River sat next to her mother and the Doctor explained everything that had happened, from Felicity's initial trip with Sontarans to the Nightmare Child and Logopolis. The story took several hours to tell, but Amy was a believer by the time it was over.

"That doesn't explain why you never came home," Amy said, watching her daughter's expression closely.

"I should have, but I was afraid that the Doctor wouldn't come back for me." The Doctor opened his mouth to defend himself, but a glare from both Ponds made him quickly shut it again.

The sound of a car door slamming brought the three out of their collective staring contest. Amy jumped up. "Let me talk to him first." The other two nodded and stayed in the living room.

Within moments, a very anxious and astounded Rory was in the room and the happy crying was repeated. They made a point to tell him the entire story as well, something that he really needed to know. Amy and Rory's glares of anger at their old friend were still present, but less intense.

"I told you both that her entire time line was in flux," the Doctor began.

River frowned. "Is that why you took me with you? To keep an _eye_ on me?"

The Doctor puffed out his cheeks and scratched his head. "...Maybe?" She picked up a pillow from the couch and threw it at him.

"Let me finish!" he protested, as she grabbed another one. "Your time line was in flux, yes, but that meant that you could die at any second or potentially live... Well, not forever, but nothing about your life was set in stone. It was variable, all of it. But it isn't any more. The instant that you stepped into my TARDIS, your time line became solid. Everything that happened from when you were fourteen until now _had_ to happen."

"So why do my parents both know my new name already?"

"Ah... Spoilers."

xxxxxxxxxx

"Do you have to leave so soon?" Amy reached a hand out to tuck a curl of hair behind her daughter's ear. The four were standing outside the TARDIS, an antsy Doctor ready to get going.

"I'll be back, don't worry," River insisted. "I picked up a hobby or two that can only be done in one place, so I'll have to come back sometime." The Doctor mumbled something about archaeologists and she elbowed him in the side.

"I'll bring her back," he promised. The two parents looked sceptical, but River assured them that she knew how to fly the TARDIS, so she would be home eventually. They all hugged goodbye and Amy and Rory carefully ignored the fact that the Doctor was holding their daughter's hand as they stepped back into the TARDIS.

"So," he said, turning to her with a smile as they approached the console. "Picnic at Asgard?"

She returned the expression. "Thought you'd never ask."

xxxxxxxxxx

My name is River Song, also known as Felicity Annabelle Williams.

I spent my whole life searching for my big, blue box.

But never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would actually find it.

And now, I'm so glad I did.


End file.
